Helsinki City and Builder.Cam in collaboration for 15 years already
Close collaboration
The collaboration with Builder.Cam and Helsinki City Clerk’s office has gone well, and together with Builder.Cam, we have been able to share the city’s development in a unique way. The residents have been able to follow the development of the areas in real-time and we have made wonderful timelapse-videos, where we can see how the areas have developed over 15 years. Few cities have similar material from such a long time.
- Petri Hoppula / Project Engineer, Helsinki City Clerk’s office, Area construction
The spark from the Musiikitalo construction site web camera
The idea for the Builder.Cam (Raksakamera in Finland) was born when IT house Nemesol Oy (now Enlapser Oy, which operates Builder.Cam) was commissioned to implement the website for the Musiikkitalo construction site. A web camera had also been purchased for the Musikkitalo construction site, which was installed to photograph the construction site from Kiasma’s window. Musiikkitalo received the web camera image on its pages, but the images were not captured. Nemesol was commissioned to capture the image and present the image history to the public.
Image from Musiikkitalo web camera, 16.5.2009
Helsinki City becomes interested in the service
When both the Musiikkitalo construction organization and the City of Helsinki had benefited a lot from the Musiikkitalo image material, and visitors were interested in following the construction site, the interest in regional development also arose. Nemesol received the order and the first real Builder.Cam’s were installed in Jätkäsaari and Kalasatama. At that time, camera equipment was acquired in collaboration with the city through a surveillance camera company, but the IoT solution used to transfer the images to the servers was developed for this purpose at Nemesol.
New Helsinki and tendering
In 2015, the camera service was further expanded when the city organized a tender for web cameras, which Nemesol Oy won with its Builder.Cam service. In addition to Kalasatama and Jätkäsaari, cameras were installed in Kruununvuori and Pasila. When Jätkäsaari was being developed, two cameras filmed the area at its best. After Kruununvuori was completed, the camera was moved to also film Kruununvuorenranta. The public players were brought out to the city’s new Helsinki – regional development website and thus the public could follow the development in real time and browse the archives.
Construction camera evolves
The services and technology of Builder.Cam developed rapidly and a few years later the first standalone Enlapser cameras were developed and put into use in the city’s projects. The high-resolution Enlapser 4K panorama camera was very well suited for photographing large areas. Later, all the city’s cameras were upgraded to the next-generation Enlapser 5K cameras.
Salmisaari and Jätkäsaari from August 2008, taken with an Enlapser 4K camera
Follow the updated image of public cameras
- Pasila: https://enlapser.cloud/287808153/fi/
- Kalasatama: https://enlapser.cloud/4346790/fi/
Timelapse-videos
- Two years of construction work at Jätkäsaari in one minute, summer 2009 to autumn 2011:
- Construction of Musiikkitalo 6.7.2007-13.92011:
- Mist over Jätkäsaari. (Two days’ timelapse, from 2010):
- Kalasatama 2009-2012:
- From the Jätkäsaari bunker 2009-2014:
- Jätkäsaari timelapse 2015-2016:
- Salmisaari timelapse 2015-2017:
- Ten years of captivating Jätkäsaari!:
Published 2023-01-17